Death in the Clouds - Agatha Christie [50]
And forthwith he advanced to the bell and pressed it.
Slightly dazed, Jane followed him, clutching the notebook.
Gale opened his mouth as though to protest, then seemed to think better of it.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘In an hour, at Monseigneur’s.’
The door was opened by a rather forbidding-looking elderly woman attired in severe black.
Poirot said, ‘Mr Clancy?’
She drew back and Poirot and Jane entered.
‘What name, sir?’
‘Mr Hercule Poirot.’
The severe woman led them upstairs and into a room on the first floor.
‘Mr Air Kule Prott,’ she announced.
Poirot realized at once the force of Mr Clancy’s announcement at Croydon to the effect that he was not a tidy man. The room, a long one, with three windows along its length and shelves and bookcases on the other walls, was in a state of chaos. There were papers strewn about, cardboard files, bananas, bottles of beer, open books, sofa cushions, a trombone, miscellaneous china, etchings, and a bewildering assortment of fountain-pens.
In the middle of this confusion Mr Clancy was struggling with a camera and a roll of film.
‘Dear me,’ said Mr Clancy, looking up as the visitors were announced. He put the camera down and the roll of film promptly fell on the floor and unwound itself. He came forward with outstretched hand. ‘Very glad to see you, I’m sure.’
‘You remember me, I hope?’ said Poirot. ‘This is my secretary, Miss Grey.’
‘How d’you do, Miss Grey.’ He shook her by the hand and then turned back to Poirot. ‘Yes, of course I remember you—at least—now, where was it exactly? Was it at the Skull and Crossbones Club?’
‘We were fellow passengers on an aeroplane from Paris on a certain fatal occasion.’
‘Why, of course,’ said Mr Clancy. ‘And Miss Grey too! Only I hadn’t realized she was your secretary. In fact, I had some idea that she was in a beauty parlour—something of that kind.’
Jane looked anxiously at Poirot.
The latter was quite equal to the situation.
‘Perfectly correct,’ he said. ‘As an efficient secretary, Miss Grey has at times to undertake certain work of a temporary nature—you understand?’
‘Of course,’ said Mr Clancy. ‘I was forgetting. You’re a detective—the real thing. Not Scotland Yard. Private investigation. Do sit down, Miss Grey. No, not there; I think there’s orange juice on that chair. If I shift this file—Oh, dear, now everything’s tumbled out. Never mind. You sit here, M. Poirot—that’s right, isn’t it?—Poirot? The back’s not really broken. It only creaks a little as you lean against it. Well, perhaps it’s best not to lean too hard. Yes, a private investigator like my Wilbraham Rice. The public have taken very strongly to Wilbraham Rice. He bites his nails and eats a lot of bananas. I don’t know why I made him bite his nails to start with—it’s really rather disgusting—but there it is. He started by biting his nails, and now he has to do it in every single book. So monotonous. The bananas aren’t so bad; you get a bit of fun out of them—criminals slipping on the skin. I eat bananas myself—that’s what put it into my head. But I don’t bite my nails. Have some beer?’
‘I thank you, no.’
Mr Clancy sighed, sat down himself, and gazed earnestly at Poirot.
‘I can guess what you’ve come about—the murder of Giselle. I’ve thought and thought about that case. You can say what you like, it’s amazing—poisoned darts and a blowpipe in an aeroplane. An idea I have used myself, as I told you, both in book and short story form. Of course it was a very shocking occurrence, but I must confess, M. Poirot, that I was thrilled, positively thrilled.’
‘I can quite see,’ said Poirot, ‘that the crime must have appealed to you professionally, Mr Clancy.’
Mr Clancy beamed.
‘Exactly. You would think that anyone—even the official police—could have understood that! But not at all. Suspicion—that is all I got, both from the inspector and at the inquest. I go out of my way to assist the course of justice, and all I get for my pains is palpable thick-headed suspicion!’
‘All the same,’ said Poirot,